What you’re seeing
- A passive mailbox database copy reports a status of FailedAndSuspended.
- The copy queue length shows thousands of transaction logs waiting and keeps climbing.
- Monitoring alerts that a database has fewer healthy copies than expected.
- The content index on the passive copy may also show as failed.
Common causes
Every environment is different, but these are the causes our engineers find most often:
- The network link between DAG members was interrupted long enough for log shipping to fall far behind.
- The log or database volume on the passive server ran out of space, stopping replication.
- A transaction log was damaged or went missing in transit, breaking the sequence the passive copy needs.
- The passive server was offline for a long period, for example during extended patching or a hardware fault.
- Storage on the passive server is reporting errors or very high latency, so it cannot keep up with incoming logs.
Why it matters
A DAG exists so that a single server failure does not take mailboxes offline. With the passive copy failed, that protection is gone, and the next problem on the active server could mean every mailbox on that database is unavailable. Meanwhile, logs build up on the active server, consuming disk space that can eventually cause their own outage. Organizations that count on the DAG for continuity, or have promised clients a certain level of availability, are running without a safety net until the copy is healthy again.
How AskTechGurus fixes it
Skip the trial and error. A certified engineer works on your actual system, finds the root cause, and fixes it properly.
Tell us what’s happening
Submit a ticket in about two minutes. Paste the error, describe what changed, and pick your tier. No charge to submit.
A certified engineer diagnoses it
A vetted, US-based systems engineer claims your ticket, usually within minutes during business hours, and investigates over a secure remote session you can watch and end at any time.
Fixed and verified with you
The engineer resolves the root cause and confirms with you that it’s working. You don’t just get a workaround, and you get a plain-English summary of what was wrong.
Pay only when it’s resolved
Fixed price from $99, invoiced only after you approve the fix. If it isn’t resolved, you don’t pay.
Frequently asked questions
Are users affected right now?
Usually not. Users connect to the active copy, which keeps working normally. The risk is what happens if the active server has a problem before redundancy is restored.
Is rebuilding the copy disruptive?
It copies the full database from the healthy server, which can take hours for a large database and uses a lot of network bandwidth. We plan it around your busy periods, and users stay connected to the active copy throughout.